A car accident led doctors to discover a brain tumor the length of an index finger that had been growing in a Sacramento woman's brain for more than a year.

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Aimee Green was driving with her boyfriend, Gianni Westlake, on a Sacramento highway when she lost control of her car and crashed. The 24-year-old Sacramento resident was knocked unconscious and emergency workers took her and her passenger to a local hospital.

The couple suffered no major injuries in the Feb. 20 accident. Doctors administered a routine CT scan despite Green's insistence that she felt fine.

That's when they found the tumor, about two inches long, growing above her right ear.

"I immediately started to cry and felt like my world completely ended," Green told the Daily Mail.

Doctors identified the mass as a choroid plexus papilloma, a benign form of tumor most often diagnosed in children. The papilloma increases the production of cerebrospinal fluid, leading to increased pressure on the brain and skull. If the pressure increases, the tumor can be deadly.

Green said she had suffered from severe migraines and seizures for years, conditions which now appear to be related to the tumor.

Doctors hope to remove the growth within the next month, as soon as Green's insurance clears the procedure. But there's an added complication: The surgery can lead to memory loss and spatial memory loss.

Green, a senior at Sacramento State University, is just a few months away from becoming the first person in her family to graduate from college. The surgery, she fears, could throw a wrench in those plans.

"I might not be the same [after the surgery]," she said in her Daily Mail interview.

With the help of her Sacramento State teachers, Green is poised to graduate early with a degree in social work -- before the surgery and its plethora of possible outcomes.

"This is the main reason I'm focused on graduating early," she said, "because I may not ever be able to come back and do it."

Of the February car accident that led to the tumor's discovery, Green told People: "It was truly a blessing."